The item cannot be added to your registry. Please select alternate item(s) or consider purchasing the item(s) now!The item(s) you want to add may not be available for purchase from your registry in the future. Consider purchasing the item(s) now, and check your local store if we are out of stock online.Please make a selection to add to registry.

The item cannot be added to your wish list. Please select alternate item(s) or consider purchasing the item(s) now!The item(s) you want to add may not be available for purchase from your Wish List in the future. Consider purchasing the item(s) now, and check your local store if we are out of stock online.Please make a selection to add to wish list.

Batteries

Product Description

Enter the world of mining on a colossal scale with the massive Bucket Wheel Excavator the largest LEGO® Technic set to date! This highly detailed 2-in-1 model has been designed to provide an immersive and rewarding build and play experience, and comes with array of motorized functions, including forward and reverse driving, moving conveyor belts, working boom with revolving bucket wheel, and a rotating superstructure. You can even rebuild the model to create a Mobile Aggregate Processing Plant.

The LEGO Technic Bucket Wheel Excavator (42055) Features:

Features a LEGO® Power Functions motor for an array of motorized functions, including forward and reverse driving, rotating bucket wheel, moving conveyor belts and rotating superstructure

Also features hand-railed walkways, lights, mined-material elements and a rugged mine truck

The goods: 1. Loads of parts!! Just too many parts in the box and the weight almost breaks the yellow LEGO vinyl bag. If you ordered it from Internet, give some praise...Read complete review

The goods: 1. Loads of parts!! Just too many parts in the box and the weight almost breaks the yellow LEGO vinyl bag. If you ordered it from Internet, give some praise to your delivery people. 2. It's not just many parts. This set contains loads of square frame parts and gears which are super useful in any MOC designs. If you want to dive into Technic building, this set is a MUST buy set. 3. Many functions. Rolling conveyor belts and bucket wheel operation are already worthwhile to make a contraption. This set also moves forward and backwards and the superstructure rotates. Although the bucket wheel elevation and lower conveyor part rotation are manual but it's not too hard to motorize it due to its sheer size!! 4. Although you can't mount a Minifigure, this model is actually a one of few Minifigure sized Technic models. The cockpit can contain a Minifigure if you modify the seat with a proper studded one. (This is a definite plus for anyone wants to play with!!) 5. The finished A model is a huge contraption but is actually very sturdy. You can carry this heavy contraption by holding the top part of the arch!! The bucket wheel arm itself is really sturdy as well. You can even wield it around without problem. The drawbacks. 1. Too many parts and gears: causes too much backlash and almost impossible to debug when something isn't working well. I've changed the tandem clutch wheels with 24 teeth gears to ensure smooth bucket wheel operation (see one of my pictures.) But this isn't safe especially if any mineral(or Skittles!!) stuck into some corner to hamper any motorized operation. It's gonna break rest of gears or overheat PF XL motor. 2. The backlash is severe. For example. The lower conveyor belt lock is almost invalid. Even though you engage the lock, the conveyor belt slides like +30 to -30 degrees without any serious impedance. 3. In other words, this set is super hard to make it operate properly. Although putting parts together is not hard at all(since this model doesn't have any pneumatic hoses and threads), fitting all the parts to ensure smooth operation is a great challenge. The hints on instruction manual aren't enough. You are warned!! 4. B model instruction is only available on the Internet. Browsing through hundreds of PDF pages (especially without proper index codes!!) isn't convenient at all. 5. The control panel has many functions. But the operation is kinda limited. You cannot mix any rotation with linear movement. i.e. The bucket wheel cannot rotate when the excavator is moving forward. A MOC project to work on!! Although I've pointed out as many drawbacks as pros, it's not a bad model for the size. Heck, this is the largest PF motorized Technic model (excluding fan designed MOCs) so far. Remark: You better visit Bulk Barn to play with this model properly!! Skittles!! Skittles!! more Skittles!!

VS

Most Helpful Critical Review

Cool, but slow

I was excited to buy it, and I loved building it. I heard that it was cumbersome with the Power Functions XL motor, but that didn't matter to me. However, after building...Read complete review

I was excited to buy it, and I loved building it. I heard that it was cumbersome with the Power Functions XL motor, but that didn't matter to me. However, after building it and getting it up to speed, I found that it really isn't that fast or powerful. The motor glitches occasionally, it creeps and rotates excruciatingly slowly, and when attempting to dig any Legos, the wheel stops. This needs a more powerful motor to be able to use. Since Lego doesn't make a more powerful motor than what's included, you're stuck. All of the PF concerns aside, it looks fantastic. I would still recommend it for the building experience and the sheer size and presentation of the finished product.

It was a fun experience to build this fantastic model. But most the fun was distroyed when I turned on the switch. It was well at the beginning, but when the upper platform turn over half round, the whole platform was blocked by something. So I took apart the whole model and find that the single wheel under the platform was block by the tail of the base. I've upload some picture. the wheel is too close to the tail of the base. When all the weight turned to the rare, the upper part would be blocked Although there is a problem, but this design is amazing. I love it so much and maybe, I'll prepare to buy my second one.

Overall this set can only be recommended, not only is it immense fun to build, great fun to play and looking absolutely impressive but it also is a great set for parts and let your creativity run wild.. my only critique with this set is the missed opportunity by Lego to unite it with the Lego City world.. this set almost perfectly fits into the City scale and would have been absolutely perfect with 1 or 2 construction worker minifigs thrown in as well as a proper Lego cockpit instead of the sad Lego Technic version of a cockpit, which also is very fragile in contrast to the rest of the set.. well maybe next time.

I'm new to the lego world and want to commend the designers of this set! It is an awesome build, well laid out and it just amazes me with the amount of detail they put into this set. I am halfway done and cannot wait to finish and let my son play with it, he has been helping along the way with the organizing parts for the specific steps. I love the transmission and gear layout it really was fun for us to put them together and making sure they move smoothly. Great jobs guys! Ken

This is a very nice set to built! The complexity and the ingenious engineering, just like the real deal. Although it's massive, it still has nice details which make the model really stand out. Unfortunately the PF are tricky. At first the bucket wheel and belts were barely moving and got stuck continuously. I disassembled the bucket wheel spinning points and reassembled it with very high care. This improved the rotation and I got a somewhat continuous operation. But after a few actions it started to falter again. The clutch wheels just can't handle the force, although all parts van be operated manually without falters. I'm thinking of removing the clutch wheels from the current location (near the engine) and place individual clutch wheels directly at each PF (wheel, main belt & lower belt). Hopefully they won't be overloaded anymore. The track function & speed is perfect, no comments on that. To conclude: I had a lot of fun building it! But you need some problem solving to get the PF's working properly.

The goods: 1. Loads of parts!! Just too many parts in the box and the weight almost breaks the yellow LEGO vinyl bag. If you ordered it from Internet, give some praise to your delivery people. 2. It's not just many parts. This set contains loads of square frame parts and gears which are super useful in any MOC designs. If you want to dive into Technic building, this set is a MUST buy set. 3. Many functions. Rolling conveyor belts and bucket wheel operation are already worthwhile to make a contraption. This set also moves forward and backwards and the superstructure rotates. Although the bucket wheel elevation and lower conveyor part rotation are manual but it's not too hard to motorize it due to its sheer size!! 4. Although you can't mount a Minifigure, this model is actually a one of few Minifigure sized Technic models. The cockpit can contain a Minifigure if you modify the seat with a proper studded one. (This is a definite plus for anyone wants to play with!!) 5. The finished A model is a huge contraption but is actually very sturdy. You can carry this heavy contraption by holding the top part of the arch!! The bucket wheel arm itself is really sturdy as well. You can even wield it around without problem. The drawbacks. 1. Too many parts and gears: causes too much backlash and almost impossible to debug when something isn't working well. I've changed the tandem clutch wheels with 24 teeth gears to ensure smooth bucket wheel operation (see one of my pictures.) But this isn't safe especially if any mineral(or Skittles!!) stuck into some corner to hamper any motorized operation. It's gonna break rest of gears or overheat PF XL motor. 2. The backlash is severe. For example. The lower conveyor belt lock is almost invalid. Even though you engage the lock, the conveyor belt slides like +30 to -30 degrees without any serious impedance. 3. In other words, this set is super hard to make it operate properly. Although putting parts together is not hard at all(since this model doesn't have any pneumatic hoses and threads), fitting all the parts to ensure smooth operation is a great challenge. The hints on instruction manual aren't enough. You are warned!! 4. B model instruction is only available on the Internet. Browsing through hundreds of PDF pages (especially without proper index codes!!) isn't convenient at all. 5. The control panel has many functions. But the operation is kinda limited. You cannot mix any rotation with linear movement. i.e. The bucket wheel cannot rotate when the excavator is moving forward. A MOC project to work on!! Although I've pointed out as many drawbacks as pros, it's not a bad model for the size. Heck, this is the largest PF motorized Technic model (excluding fan designed MOCs) so far. Remark: You better visit Bulk Barn to play with this model properly!! Skittles!! Skittles!! more Skittles!!

The quality and functions of the model are very good but I would like a more smooth looking model. Also some of manual functions could be automated as it is annoying to manually crank them when there is a motor that could be used. The other problem is the inability to pick up the lego pieces with the wheel as it just stops, so the" play element" is let down. Overall excellent model!